Nato airstrike kills 14 women and children in Afghanistan

He said Nato was targeting insurgents there late last night, but instead struck two civilian homes

Mail Online, May 29, 2011: Fourteen women and children have been killed after Nato warplanes bombed their homes in south-west Afghanistan. Six others were wounded in the attack, according to local reports, after the airstrike in Nawzad district, in the country's volatile Helmand province. (Photo: PAN)Video

Fourteen women and children have been killed after Nato warplanes bombed their homes in south-west Afghanistan.

Six others were wounded in the attack, according to local reports, after the airstrike in Nawzad district, in the country's volatile Helmand province.

Two women, five girls and seven boys were among the dead, said Dawood Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial government.

He said Nato was targeting insurgents there late last night, but instead struck two civilian homes.

The strike followed an earlier insurgent attack on a U.S. Marine base nearby.

Major Tim Jones, a spokesman for Nato, said he was aware of the reports of civilian casualties.

Alliance and Afghan troops are inspecting the site and will release additional information later.

Meanwhile, the police commander for northern Afghanistan and two German soldiers were among six people killed in a suicide bombing at a provincial governor's office.

The attacker struck in Taloqan soon after a meeting about security measures had finished, officials said.

Innocent: Afghan locals carry the dead body of a child, killed in a NATO air strike, at a hospital in Lashkar Gah in Helmand province. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)Video

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack - in what was their latest example of high-profile target selection.

The deaths came at the end of a deadly week in Afghanistan, as the Taliban launched a new offensive provoked by the killing of Osama bin Laden.Fundamentalist groups promised retaliation for the death of Bin Laden, who was killed when U.S, Navy Seals stormed his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 2.Two Royal Marines were killed by a bomb while on patrol in in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand province on Friday, and two more soldiers were killed in attacks in the south of the country.

On Thursday a powerful bomb exploded in southern Afghanistan, killing seven American troops. The soldiers were on foot patrol in a field in the Shobarak district of Kandahar province when the bomb went off.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast, which also killed two Afghan policemen near the Pakistan border in an area that was thought to be free of terror.

An eighth Nato serviceman died on Thursday in a helicopter crash.

And on Monday, another British soldier, Colour Sergeant Kevin Fortuna, died when a Taliban bomb ignited as he led his men out on patrol in the Saidabad Kalay area of the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand.

After bin Laden was killed, insurgents announced the start of a spring offensive against Nato forces and Afghan authorities, which have been bracing themselves for a series of spectacular and complex attacks.

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